Echo Saber(2018)
"Them Japs sure as hell know how to make a sexy jaeger. Just look at Tacit Ronin and Stacks' old ride. But this one? I daresay they've outdone themselves yet again. Oh, and feel free to ignore me, folks! Just the ramblings of an old man stuck with an old rustbucket..." - Sergio D'Onofrio Echo Saber was a mark IV Japanese jaeger stationed at the Tokyo Shatterdome. The last mark IV jaeger to be completed, Echo defended Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Southeast Asia and parts of America from kaiju attack until its destruction in 2024. History Early Combat History Echo Saber was launched on November 8, 2018 as the final unit in the mark IV line of jaegers. She was stationed at the Tokyo Shatterdome along with Coyote Tango and Tacit Ronin. There, Echo served as the flagship of the Japanese jaeger program, often getting called upon for diplomatic events in addition to kaiju engagements. Bukavac The category III kaiju Bukavac breached on October 29, 2020. Cherno Alpha and Eden Assassin were deployed from the Vladivostok Shatterdome and intercepted Bukavac near the Kamchatka Peninsula. Cherno's lift gear was ripped out during the fight, making her unable to give chase as Bukavac headed southwest towards the Kuril Islands. Echo was deployed from the Tokyo Shatterdome as soon as Bukavac's location was confirmed. Eden Assassin was on its way, but the lift would take a full hour. Coyote Tango and Nova Hyperion were standing by in Nagasaki and the Bering Sea, respectively; they would engage if Bukavac made a run for Japan or Russia. Echo made contact with Bukavac off the coast of Iturup Island. Bukavac's behavior was similar to its mythological counterpart, in that it preferred sneaking up and strangling its opponent. Thus, an unsuspecting Echo was caught off guard as Bukavac's tail silently slithered around her hip. A forceful tug from the kaiju sent Echo tumbling into the sea. Bukavac then latched onto Echo's back and began ripping at her armor. Fifteen minutes later, Jumphawks dropped Eden Assassin 100 meters to Echo's 6 o'clock. Eden burst forward and jammed her hooks into Bukavac's back, forcibly ripping it off from Echo. Echo proceeded to deploy her katanas and shred Bukavac's armor. Once the kaiju had been butchered thoroughly, both jaegers stepped back for Echo to activate her napalm cannons. Eight salvos of incendiary munitions lit up Bukavac's writhing form; it was burned to a crisp not long after. Biantal Biantal came swimming out of the Breach on January 3, 2024 and headed for Chile. Echo Saber and Hydra Corinthian were deployed to Concepción. Mammoth Apostle was lifted out to La Serena, while Diablo Intercept stood by in Punta Arenas. Panama Shatterdome's marshal made the questionable decision of running Matador Fury down to Easter Island, his attempt at an "early intercept." Matador did indeed intercept Biantal, if only briefly. As Matador closed in, Biantal jumped out of the water and knocked her backwards. The struggling mark III attempted to use its flamethrowers and knuckle claws, to no avail; flamethrowers simply annoyed Biantal, while the knuckle claws glanced off its sloped armor. Biantal countered Matador's vertical claw-swipe by trapping her arm and snapping it backwards, ripping it off. The severed arm was swung about wildly like a baseball bat. Biantal then skewered Matador's abdomen and drilled deep into her torso. As Matador's breached reactor began melting down, the kaiju slipped into the sea and swam for Concepción. Matador's rapid destruction rendered any form of reaction insufficient. Echo and Hydra remained in Concepción, warily monitoring Biantal's approach. Thus, Hydra was able to nail Biantal with an elbow-drop before it could even surface. Lanphier and LaRue continued pounding at Biantal's armor, and after splitting apart every major plate, hurled the beast at Echo. Echo's katanas dug into the cracks on Biantal's armor, igniting fountains of Blue which cascaded into the frothing sea. Both legs and an arm were brutally sawed off. Biantal's chest was ripped open by Hydra's bare hands, exposing its chest cavity and the bleeding organs within. These were set ablaze as Echo's napalm rounds ripped into them. Biantal's tortured roars abruptly cut out as Echo thrust her katana down its throat. Apophis Apophis breached on April 11, 2024 and headed for the Southern Hemisphere. All Northern Shatterdomes were relegated to standby, while the Southern jaegers mobilized. At this time, Echo was stationed at the Sydney Shatterdome for cross-training; she, along with Vulcan Specter, was dropped into the Tasman Sea in case Apophis chose to attack Australia or New Zealand. Cherno Alpha and Nova Hyperion attempted to beat the bogey to Davao City, but failed to intercept. Apophis instead attacked Manado, only to face resistance in the form of Shaolin Rogue, who had been standing by in Sulawesi. Cherno and Nova arrived shortly after and assisted Shaolin in triple-teaming Apophis. How much damage they inflicted during the one-hour skirmish was never confirmed; a tropical storm had rendered visibility zero and made Jumphawk assistance impossible. Apophis finally gave up and bolted for East Timor. Striker Eureka made contact in the Timor Sea, but was hampered by the ongoing storm. Vulcan Specter was lifted out to assist Striker and touched down five hours later, only to find out Apophis had slipped away again. Three hours later, spectrometer buoys in the Coral Sea detected it closing in on the Solomon Islands. Echo Saber, still patrolling the Tasman Sea, was called in to engage. Twenty minutes before Echo's arrival, Apophis surfaced and began rampaging through the beach. It blundered about and knocked down whole forests while slaughtering wildlife, but failed to recognize the squat concrete buildings in which the natives huddled. Apophis' ignorance made Echo's approach relatively easy; by the time the kaiju knew what was coming, napalm from a dozen incendiary rounds was scorching its armor. Echo used the blindly charging Apophis's momentum against it, ramming it into a cliff. She then proceeded to pound the kaiju down before brandishing her dual katanas. After feinting with a left thrust, Echo slashed a large gash on Apophis' side with her other sword. The enraged kaiju began swinging its arms about wildly, to which Echo responded by dancing in and out of Solomon's countless hills and rock formations. This disoriented Apophis, enabling Echo to shred its armor without much difficulty. The one-sided sparing tore across the Solomon Islands, purposefully moving away from the anti-kaiju shelters. It ended only when Echo burst out from behind an underwater volcano and jammed her katanas into Apophis' belly, pinning it onto a hill. As Echo charged her left-hand napalm cannon for a point-blank shot, one of Apophis' arms shot out and decimated the weapon. Both katanas were ripped out and hurled back at Echo, forcing her to execute complex defensive maneuvers. Apophis blindsided Echo by tackling her onto a rock formation and mercilessly hammering at her armor. Norman was almost killed when his side of the conn-pod caved in. Echo was tossed around the Solomon Islands for a good twenty minutes before being smacked onto a beach; she had suffered tremendous damage and could barely stand upright. Apophis struck down the struggling jaeger once again before sinking its pointy skull into her chest. Alarms wailed, metal strained and pilots screamed as colossal chunks were ripped off from Echo's frame. Yet in a stroke of luck, Echo managed to unload her remaining napalm into Apophis' mouth as it roared in triumph. The howling kaiju subsequently went stampeding in another direction as Echo oriented herself. Jumphawk pilots then informed Echo about a large shipwreck not far from their location. Echo crawled into the water at an agonizingly slow pace, reaching the wreck just as Apophis regained rational thought. It reeled as the shipwreck-turned-mace repeatedly bludgeoned its head. Echo ripped off a huge slab of metal and jammed it into a previously-inflicted scar on Apophis' neck. She then grasped Apophis' horns and madly twisted at its head, ripping it off effortlessly. By the time Vulcan Specter and Striker Eureka arrived, Echo was sprawled alongside Apophis' beheaded body; the Blue cascading from its neck was slowly spreading across Solomon's once crystal-clear waters. Destruction On May 30, 2024, Echo and Chrome Brutus intercepted PGS-24 near the shoreline of Puget Sound. Both jaegers sustained an onslaught of cavernous punctures from PGS-24's lengthy, spear-like unguis, the archaic piercing weapons easily pulverizing the armor plates of Echo like spin-sugar; with Chrome, on the other hand, overwhelmingly billowed plumes of smoke. After a prolonged match of hide-and-seek throughout the copious Fjords dispersed throughout the isle, a salvo of cartridges from Chrome decisively dropping the game. Chrome had succeeded in outmaneuvering PGS-24 and unloaded her gatling guns behind it; the kaiju was momentarily perplexed amidst a hailstorm of the armor-piercing shells that obscured its perception like a miasma of tear gas. Chrome then used her substantial mass to flip PGS-24 on its stern, fastening it down as a ripose from Echo Saber decisively severed both the kaiju's tail and tore away at the jugular. A series of precisely directed slashes from Echo effortlessly severed two of PGS-24's forelimbs, and a final sequence climaxing in a kesa giri left the kaiju ostensibly lifeless in the spring; the multiple gashes towards the kaiju's hide polluting Puget Sound's pristine waters. Both jaeger's moved rearward from the modern art piece as Echo's pilots inquired LOCCENT about PGS-24's vital signs, the kaiju apparently terminated as hundreds of gallons of kaiju blue drained from its body; PGS-24 had almost smoothed into a blue flapjack on the surface of the water. Before a moment's notice, Echo was sent stumbling back as the piercing lingula of PGS-24 split into her cockpit; and diverged Norman into a puddle of blood, his organs, and limbs strewn alongside the bluffs of the conn-pod. Chrome was sent soaring into a rocky outcrop from the kaiju's remaining stump of a tail. Zeke and Ilisapie could only watch in terror as the colossal category IV toppled the motionless Echo, their attempts of reaching the pilots proved futile as Tadashi contracted to the brunt of a neural load shock, blood slowly oozing from both ears and nose; his fate sealed when the conn-pod saturated with radionuclide-enhanced water. PGS-24 proceeded to hammer away at Echo's upper thorax, cleaving open the titanium plates padding her chest and easily skewering through the Japanese jeager's unveiled batteries and power core. Thus, when Chrome blasted PGS-24 towards a glacial channel, Echo was sprawled in the lake, extensive fires melting her paint job and softening the inelastic titanium armor that sheath her chest. Chrome proceeded to launch PGS-24 onto a crag adjacent to the glacier, brutally hammering the kaiju into a bloody pulp until it's movements receded. Twenty-four mortar rockets discharged at point-blank speedily galvanized the limp kaiju into oblivion, with just insignificant shreds strewn across the water. Features Trivia * Tadashi is Japanese, whereas Norman is Swedish. The two were close friends since childhood. * After Tadashi's family was killed during the Trespasser attack, he lived with Norman's family until they joined the Academy. * Tadashi and Norman were both 24 when Echo launched in 2018. * Both of Echo's pilots were Iron Man fans, and thus requested a drivesuit design reminiscent of the mark 43 Iron Man armor. * Echo's pilots were extremely close with the Tunaris and Jessops, and had a sort of rivalry with Mammoth's crew. * Echo's wreckage was dumped into Oblivion Bay. By 2035, it had been picked clean by scavengers. * Tadashi and Norman installed figures of their favorite variation of Iron Man armor inside Echo's conn-pod. The Mk.45 is on Tadashi's side, while Norman opted for the War Machine Mk.4. These Hot Toys figures are safely stored in blast-proof glass cases recessed into Echo's control panel. Tadashi and Norman considered them as "good-luck tokens." Kaiju Killed Category:Jaegers Category:Mark IV